I wanted to punch him. To absolutely launch forward and kick him in the junk so he bent over from his ridiculous height and then break his nose. A guy that annoying had to have had a broken nose a couple times in his life, if not a dozen plus. The way he talked to people, he must have been punched in the face a couple of times. And yet he stormed off like I was the jackass. Like somehow a frustrated and exhausted mother of two equally exhausted toddlers would automatically handle a broken-down car in the middle of the night or a strange man storming up and giving orders.
I’d texted Kara while he pushed the car down the street like it was no more than rolling a grocery cart. That had been impressive, though I’d never admit it to him. I checked him out a couple of times in the rear view mirror and forced myself to look away from his intense, sexy expression and those bulging shoulder muscles. Damn. He had no right to be that stacked and still be a dick.
She hadn’t responded by the time I pulled up against the curb and hit the brakes, taking a tiny bit of satisfaction from seeing him stride right into the bumper. Served him right. Asshole.
Except a real asshole would have just left me three blocks back, sitting in the dark, and never come up to help. I wanted to maybe apologize for being abrupt with him or thank him for the assistance, but Aviva packed her diaper and sent me fleeing out of the car. And then he said something about a shelter and got an attitude and all rational thought fled. The next thing I knew, he stormed off across the street and disappeared into what looked like a gym with glass-front doors and battered brick walls.
I closed my eyes and massaged my temples. Okay. Just needed to figure out what to do if Kara didn’t answer. I’d give her a minute, then call. She knew we were on our way and I’d given her an approximate arrival time. Hopefully she wasn’t passed out drunk or banging her allegedly smokin’ hot husband.
The chill wind cut through my coat and set me shivering, though it wasn’t enough to send me back into the toxic waste dump inside the car. Maybe I could use the lobby of what the guy called a shelter to change her and get rid of the offending diaper. It was just a matter of time until Viviana did the same and then they would poison anything within a five block radius.
But I floundered. The plan derailed once more a couple of times, first with the flat tire, then with the shitty starter, then not getting a response from Kara. I was still deciding what to do next when the woman in the shelter leaned around the half-open door and said, “Hey sug. You need help? Are you looking for a safe place to stay tonight?”
“My friend is supposed to meet me,” I said, teeth starting to chatter. “Thank you, though.”
“Why don’t you come inside and warm up until she gets here?” The young woman set a door stopper and stepped outside to peer into my car. “Since you’ve got two little angels in there, I’m sure you need a break. Hot chocolate, maybe a little rum mixed in for good measure, and some warm blankets and the wait’ll be less miserable.”
I hesitated, since I wasn’t exactly good at accepting unsolicited help, but the wind howled a sheet of snow into my face along with a whiff of the dirty diaper, and I caved. “Thank you. That does sound... good.”
She beamed and pulled open the back door before I could warn her, then stopped dead and blinked away tears. I sighed and pointed to my side of the car. “If you can get her? The other one apparently ate garbage and passed it on. I’ll change her inside if you don’t mind the smell for a second?”
“We’ll make do,” she said, though she didn’t look quite as confident. Rosy cheeks and freckles on her nose made her adorable in a way I desperately envied, since I’d always been too sharp-featured to be anything but “intense” and “scary.” Never adorable. “I’m Nelly, by the way. I’m friends with the owners, so I take the night shifts when their kiddos are sick or acting up or they just need some sleep. What’s your name?”
“I’m Elle,” I said, since I hated being called ‘Noelle.’ Worst name ever for a kid born on Christmas. I should have realized much sooner than thirteen that my parents were shitheads. Just because they ran a church and talked about God a lot didn’t mean they were good people. “And that’s Viviana, and this is Aviva.”
I carried Aviva at arm’s length and held my breath as we slipped and slid into the vestibule. I barely managed to grab the diaper bag from the backseat before we scrambled inside. Nelly kept a good distance away with Vivi as I did a ninja diaper change and immediately put the diaper in the garbage, tied it up, and hauled it all outside to freeze and maybe kill the smell. Then I could wash my hands, blow my nose, and splash some water on my face to feel almost like a person again.
Nelly directed the girls to a pile of toys near the Christmas tree and decorations that filled half of the main room in a nauseating swirl of yuletide ugh. As I got my bearings, she actually mixed hot chocolate with rum, and she was absolutely right: it was my new favorite drink. I’d gotten two sips in when the front door buzzed and clanked, and Kara whirled through the door with a tall man looming behind her. My eyebrows rose as she bustled up, shaking off the snow, and wrapped me up in a very cold hug.
“Elle!” she said, laughing. Her cheeks flared bright pink and her eyes sparkled; I’d never seen her so happy, particularly at three in the morning. I loved that she was deliriously happy with her new man, but fought down jealousy at the same time. I’d never met the guy but if he was good enough for Kara and her brother Nick hadn’t killed him, then Owen must have been a good guy.
I awkwardly stood to hug her back, shivering more from the breeze that followed them in, and glanced back as Viviana body-slammed a nutcracker. “Uh, I should just...”
“I can distract them,” the guy said, nodding to me before lumbering over to the pile of toys the girls had managed to tear into within seconds of getting on their feet. I watched in surprise as the dude -- looking like a very scarred professional fighter -- flopped onto the ground nearby and started playing with some blocks. My girls, usually very suspicious of strangers, pretended not to notice him at first, but when he continued ignoring them, they couldn’t resist.
I winced as Vivi stepped on his junk in her effort to climb over him, and bit the inside of my cheek. “Oh Lord. He doesn’t have to...”
“He’s had plenty of practice,” Kara said. She grinned at Nelly, who laughed and got another mug of cocoa before re-joining us. “There are about half a dozen babies running around next door, and I volunteered him to babysit them to get ready for our little monster.” And she rubbed her generous belly, partly hidden with the bulky winter coat.
“Oh wow.” I’d known she was pregnant but it hadn’t really registered. Maybe that was the glow. My throat closed. She looked so happy. And Owen had come into a blizzard to meet her friend and then started entertaining two babies just to help his wife. “That’s so great. Congratulations.”
“Well, after watching Sasha’s boys...” She shook her head and held her stomach. “I questioned our sanity. I really hope we have a girl.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder at where Vivi dragged the nutcrackers over to show Owen and dropped them -- with incredible accuracy -- on his junk. “These two aren’t any picnic.”
Kara reached out to squeeze my shoulder. “Girl, it’s been a while. How are you? I’m surprised you’re relocating around Christmas. Isn’t most everything shut or working reduced hours?”
I cleared my throat and drank more cocoa to buy some time. “It’s been a rough couple of months, I’m not going to lie. We didn’t have much time to make a decision on leaving. Lost my job and the landlord decided to sell, so I had two weeks’ notice on both. Instead of trying to suffer through this awful season there, I wanted to get a head start on getting settled somewhere new. Hopefully somewhere warmer.”
“Oh jeez,” she said. Kara shook her head. “That’s awful. Well, problem solved. You’ll stay here for a couple of weeks so the girls have a good Christmas and you can search for a new job and your new apartment wherever it is you want to go. Knowing you, you probably just got in the car without a plan. Right?” She laughed when she saw my face. “Nick would be so disappointed in you.”
That, at least, made me smile. Her gorgeous, intimidating, and slightly crazy older brother had reappeared and disappeared out of her life a couple of times, and he’d surprised the bejesus out of me by popping up out of the bushes outside her house once or twice. “You’re right and wrong. I have some of a plan, but that didn’t include my car breaking down. I don’t want to infringe on your hospitality, but it would help me if...”
“Nonsense.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be stupid. Of course you’ll stay here. Owen knows a good mechanic, and if he can’t fix it, Sasha’s shady friends will push one off a truck for you.”
“Wait... what?” I needed a hell of a lot of sleep and way more caffeine before I could respond to that. “No, I don’t need a stolen car, I’ve got enough...”
“That’s not precisely how Sasha works,” Nelly said cheerfully. She got up as the phone at the desk rang, and winked before answering.
I rubbed my forehead, wishing the headache had abated once we got out of the cold. “Still. I’ve got enough trouble right now, I don’t need to go looking for anything else.”
Kara shrugged and added more rum to my cocoa. “Suit yourself. Lucky that your car broke down right outside, though.”
“Oh no,” I said, laughing. “I broke down three blocks back.”
“You walked?”
“No, some weirdo pushed the car for me. He was wandering around in the middle of a blizzard at three in the morning. I thought for sure he wanted to murder us.”
“Jameson,” Nelly called from the desk. “He was out and rolled the car in, got all grumpy, and stomped off.”
Kara rolled her eyes and redid her blonde ponytail. “Typical. He’s a nice guy but fights it.”
The man’s attitude seemed to defy anything to do with “nice,” although he’d pushed my car when he didn’t have to. “You know that guy?”
“Yeah, he’s friends with Sasha,” Kara said. “A lot like Nick, if you ask me.”
“Ah.” That explained a lot. “Does he live in that gym?”
“We all do.” Kara got up and stretched, pressing her hands against her lower back and groaning. “Jesus Christ, how do I have to pee again? There’s an island of misfit toys over there, my dear. The guys all knew each other from before and slowly collected wives and girlfriends. Kaiser and Josie are on the top floor with Josie’s nieces and nephew and their own kid, then it’s...”
She went on down a whole roster of people and names and backstories while I stared at her and processed not a single word. She must have noticed my glazed eyes and laughed more, glancing over at where Owen still lay on the floor. “Babe, we should...”
Kara snorted and I tensed, waiting for news that Aviva had cornered him with a shiv and tried to take his wallet. But instead I found Owen and both girls sound asleep in a pile against a giant stuffed snowman. Aviva still held that damn nutcracker but Viviana looked practically cherubic as she snugged up under the dude’s chin and wrapped her fist in his beard.
A knot tied up my throat as I took in the holiday scene. Unfair. It was so unfair the girls wouldn’t have a father like that. I hadn’t loved their father, and hadn’t even known him, but if he’d lived, maybe we could have worked something out. Who knew? And now... now that I had them, what kind of adult male wanted to walk into the kind of chaos that ruled my life? Who signed up for two toddlers who weren’t theirs?
I cleared my throat and pretended to struggle with something in my eye. “So he’s a white noise machine, too?”
“And he’s not even the baby whisperer,” Kara said, practically radiating love as she watched him. I threw up in my mouth a little at her expression. But my friend made a face at me, obviously understanding my expression. “Jameson is. Sasha and Sunny’s littlest had colic for-ev-er and he only started sleeping more than a few minutes at a time when Sasha finally planted him on big gruff grumpy butt Jameson. The little guy snored for a solid six hours. Sasha was delirious from all the sleep he got.”
She chuckled and looked around. “Where are your bags, babe? Let’s get inside and get you guys settled in. We have a guest room on our floor that I put a couple of pack-n-plays in so the girls will be comfortable.”
Just the thought that I wouldn’t have to set anything up made me want to cry in relief. “That sounds amazing. I just have the diaper bag and this duffel.”
Her eyebrows arched. “You’re kidding, right? Didn’t you live in that apartment for two years?”
“Yeah.” I got up and stretched, too, then debated how to untangle my two little monsters from the sleeping man without him losing a fistful of his beard. “But there wasn’t much worth saving.”
She frowned. “We’re going to have a talk, Noelle Marie, about you burning the candle at both ends. You’ve gotta take better care of yourself.”
I forced a smile and reached for Aviva, since she was the most dangerous right after being woken. “Sure, we can talk as much as you want. Unless you’ve got a winning lottery ticket, girl, I’m not sure how much good talking will do.”
“Well,” she said, giving me a sidelong look. “Maybe there’s a Christmas miracle in your future.”
I laughed and wrapped Aviva up in her blanket so she couldn’t flail too much, and managed to not wake her as Viviana remained knocked out on Owen’s shoulder. He blinked sleepily, like a bear coming out of hibernation, and lumbered to his feet. He picked up both the diaper bag and the duffel in his free hand, like they weighed nothing at all, and headed for the door before I could object.
Nelly gave me another cocoa-rum concoction in a to-go cup. “I’m sure I’ll see you around, but if I don’t, there are presents already wrapped in the back room if you need a couple for the kiddos. The ones with duckies on the paper are for two and under. Happy holidays.”
I could have cried, yet again. “Thank you, really. Happy holidays to you, too.”
And then I rushed after Owen and Kara into the blizzard, wondering what the fuck just happened.